Borough cleanup springs into action this weekend

Tony Lonnett notices a lot on his daily walks through town. And a lot of what he sees disappoints him - too many people with an utter disregard for the environment.

Lonnett, with the help of the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce, is out to change that, but needs the community's support. Every Saturday through April, volunteers are needed to assist with a spring cleanup throughout the borough.

Lonnett, who lives in the Fourth Ward, is the cleanup coordinator. He's more aware of the impact of littering than most people, not only because he walks around town almost daily, but because of his knowledge of the environment.

For 35 years, Lonnett worked for FirstEnergy Corp. at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport in the area of environmental issues.

He said a lot of people blame the trash problem on kids, but he doesn't believe that. He has seen too many adults throwing trash out of their car windows or dropping things on the street.

One day, Lonnett saw a large bag from a fast-food restaurant on the street. When he went to pick it up, he saw a wallet that had been run over many times along with credit cards spread around on the street.

"I could easily see what had happened. The man had thrown the bag out and obviously picked his wallet up with his trash," Lonnett said. "I took it to the police station and told them to tell the man to be more careful where he throws his garbage."

David DeCaria, a chamber member and creator of the Pride In Ellwood campaign, said keeping the community clean is just one way of showing pride in it.

"We will be picking up litter, but it is more than that," he said. "It is about marketing our city to make it appealing to prospective business people and folks looking to live somewhere clean and safe with small-town charm."

"We have to make it equally unappealing to those on the seedier side of life who operate meth labs and sell drugs," DeCaria said. "We need to be a strong community where people are involved. That is what will keep the bad elements out of our community. When they see people taking care of their town, they will go somewhere else.

"Everyone has a stake in it. Everyone can contribute, and it can be as simple and easy as picking up litter," DeCaria said. "The time has come for us to be the change, take back our city and help shape it into what we'd like it to be."

Lonnett can cite many environmental concerns with trash. Scientists predict that anything plastic will last for thousands of years, for example.

A cigarette filter is made of man-made materials, and it does not degrade for 19 years, he said. What does happen is that the filter will eventually get into storm sewers and from there to someone's water system, Lonnett said, because the water system filters and adds chlorine. It does not remove chemicals.

"We may not be drinking that chemical here in Ellwood City, but the Connoquenessing flows into the Beaver River and the Beaver into the Ohio and the Ohio into the Mississippi and the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. There are a lot of water treatment plants along that course. It will be in someone's water," Lonnett said.

Last August, volunteers assisted at five Saturday trash pickups similar to what is planned now in different wards of the borough.

"We only had five to seven volunteers each Saturday, and we picked up 87 bags of trash," Lonnett said. "An unbelievable amount and yet, now it looks just as bad or worse.

"Be responsible for your trash," Lonnett said. "Recycle if that is possible and put the trash in a trash container."

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